CHAPTER VIII
FLINT AND STEEL
At three minutes to ten the following morning Blake entered the doorway of the mammoth International Industrial Company Building. At one minute to ten he was facing the outermost of the guards who fenced in the private office of H. V. Leslie, capitalist.
"Your business, sir? Mr. Leslie is very busy, sir."
"He told me to call this morning," explained Blake.
"Step in, sir, please."
Blake entered, and found himself in a well-remembered waiting-room, in company with a dozen or more visitors. He swung leisurely across to the second uniformed doorkeeper.
"Business?" demanded this attendant with a brusqueness due perhaps to his closer proximity to the great man.
Blake answered without the flicker of a smile: "I'm a civil engineer, if you want to know."
"Your business here?"